She knew his nickname amongst the soldiers from the many men in Wauton who’d fought by his side in the last skirmish with the English. Unlike with Alexander’s dubious reputation, she’d only ever heard friendly speech and thoughts regarding Nathair.
One of those positives, despite his rough exterior, was that he was a remarkably intelligent man—an equal to the Laird. Young soldiers under his watch often found themselves caught in the act if they tried to shirk their duties, no matter how well they thought they were managing to sneak around.
An’ now he’s turnin’ that cleverness on me. The nerve!
Though, of course, she wasn’t really offended. In fact, she found it rather enticing to meet yet another mind that could barter with hers. Nathair was the kind of person she would want to keep around as a friend…if she didn’t strangle him first.
“Ye lost in thought?” he pressed as they sat at a table, and the serving girl brought them some ale.
“Just thinkin’ about yer exploits,” Cicilia admitted honestly. “I ken ye’re popular wi’ the lads around here—and the lassies, though perhaps for a different reason.”
Nathair snorted. “Och, ye’ve been listenin’ to rumors. Some truer than others, I’ll admit to that much. But I like to think I’m just a friendly sort o’ lad, is all.”
Cicilia smiled faintly. “But how is it that I hear about ye all the time as far out from the Castle as Wauton, yet I barely kent a thing about Alexander before he showed up at me door?”
The Man-at-arms considered for a moment, then shrugged. “Because that’s how he likes it, lass. Me friend has never been one for bein’ the center o’ attention, nae since he was a wee lad.”
He leaned forward, looking like he was debating something in his head, then nodded to himself. In a low voice, near a whisper, he said, “This action wi’ the purchases, it’s somethin’ he’s doin’ regularly for his people, ye ken. Especially thon poor folk at the castle homestead. But he doesn’ae usually do it so out in the open. He likes his privacy, does Alexander.”
An’ what makes me so different?
Unbidden, her mind flooded with the image of her hair covered in hay, Alexander’s weight pressing down on her, their breaths mingling and their bodies touching and—
Och, stop it, ye silly woman.
When she looked back at Nathair, he was smiling knowingly at her. Did he know? Had Alexander told him?
“Prithee, what causes your smile?” she asked, more defensively than she’d have liked. To her annoyance, it just made Nathair smirk.
“What could ye possibly think I’m thinkin’?” Nathair asked innocently.
She scowled at him, but there was amusement in it, too. It was so odd to her, in a fun way, to see how this easy-going jester of a Man-at-arms was somehow ever-serious Alexander’s best friend.
“I have somethin’ for ye,” Nathair told her.
Cautiously, Cicilia said, “Oh? An’ what would that be?”
He reached into his bag and drew out a very familiar book. Cicilia gasped, all but snatching it from his hand when he held it out.
“He told me to tell ye that nae body has read it,” Nathair said with a nod. “I jested that I’d read it before I gave it to ye, an’ he right near strangled me. I dinnae ken what’s inside, but from that look on yer face, ye want it?”
In a choked voice, Cicilia said, “Aye, please.”
Is it true that Alexander dinnae read it? But why would he do such a thing? Does his duty nae come first?
Nathair was watching her tuck the book away safely, and he gave her a much gentler smile. “Ye look confused.”
“I am, a bit,” she confessed. “I cannae seem to get a handle on yer friend. Every time I think I understand him, he changes again.”
Nathair didn’t say anything, just waited for her to continue—for which, if Cicilia was honest, she was quite grateful.
“I mean,” she went on, “For example, when I first met him, I truly thought he despised me! The way he looked at me…”
“It was yer hair,” Nathair told her nonchalantly, as though this was a normal thing to say. “Yer hair an’ yer eyes. The oddities in them, specifically. Sandy is nae good wi’ oddities.”
Sandy? Nathair calls him by a nickname? How…humanizing. Like he’s just a normal man.
“What do ye mean?” she asked.
“Me dear friend likes things neat an’ tidy an’ in order. He’s been that way since he was a lad, an’ only more so since his Mither went. Yer wee black strip in that pretty hair, the odd sheen to yer eyes—he couldn’ae make sense o’ them, which meant he couldn’ae make sense o’ ye. That made ye a problem,” Nathair told her.
He chuckled. “Well, that an’ the fact that that farm o’ yers is the bane o’ his life. He’s got the whole clan in order, apart from the O’Donnel land. Ye can imagine how frustratin’ that must be for him.”
Cicilia nodded slowly, her hand touching the black hair she knew was showing under her bonnet
So he thought me unnatural. Me an’ me siblings as well, probably. Nae wonder he looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“But there’s one thing I dinnae understand,” she said after a moment. “How…how did he go from that to—” But she cut herself off, not wanting to share the details of the morning in the barn with Nathair.
The Man-at-arms looked at her for a moment as if sizing her up before answering. “Sandy is nae good wi’ people,” he said finally. “He’s only courted one lass in his whole life, an’ she took his heart an’ tore it to shreds the day before they were to be wed. He was just a lad, then, nae even twenty. He had nae bothered before, but she insisted an’ pushed, an’ he grew to like her. After she left, he dinnae bother tryin’ again.”
Cicilia was somehow surprised. Yes, Alexander was somewhat awkward, but he was a handsome man and the skilled way his lips had moved against her own…
Och, what do I ken? I’ve kissed one lad apart from him an’ bedded none. Maybe he was actually bad an’ I just thought otherwise.
But she hadn’t imagined the heat that started low and filled her body when he kissed her. She hadn’t made up the way his touch set her on fire.
“I dinnae ken why ye’re tellin’ me this,” she said finally.
Nathair chuckled. “Och, dinnae give me that. I may nae ken the details, but ye were nae just havin’ a chat in the stables this mornin’, I’ll bet me hat on it.”
“Ye are nae wearin’ a hat,” Cicilia pointed out.
He just winked.
“An’ besides,” Cicilia continued. “We’ve only kent each other for a few days.”
Nathair shrugged. “As have ye an’ I. We’re friends, are nae we? An’ that aside, sometimes people just have a…connection. There’s nae explainin’ it. Sometimes ye see someone for the first time an’ ye ken they’re never leavin’ yer life again.”
A devilish smile played on Cicilia’s lips, distracting her from her own discomfort momentarily. “Aye? Is that what’s happenin’ wi’ ye an’ Jeanie?”
To both her delight and a little surprise, Nathair’s cheeks turned ruddy under the wild beard. “Hush, lass,” was all he said in response, obviously embarrassed.
She took pity on him and continued. “There are plenty o’ desirable women, an’ plenty o’ farmers, if that’s to Alexander’s taste. Plenty o’ lassies who will nae quibble wi’ every word to cross his lips, an’ all. I think ye’re overexaggeratin’ or mayhap lettin’ yer imagination get the best o’ ye.”
“I am doin’ nae such thing,” Nathair said, looking horribly offended. Then he was grinning again. “I’m nae declarin’ he’s harborin’ some great love for ye or anythin’, dinnae misunderstand. But he cares for ye, an’ yer siblings, an’ ye cannae pretend he has nae noticed ye as a woman.”
“As a troublemaker, maybe,” Cicilia retorted, hoping that she wasn’t blushing as much as she thought.
“Aye, that an’ all. I think that’s what’s keepin’ him interested. He’s a good man
, ye ken. Sandy’s had many people approach him through the years, but the one thing he’s always been missin’ is a challenge.” He chuckled, holding up his glass to her. “An’ if ye’re nothin’ else, Cicilia O’Donnel, ye’re a challenge.”
She raised her cup in response. “Here’s to bein’ troublemakers, then,” she told him, her mind whirling at his implications.
“To troublemakin’, an’ a good man,” Nathair agreed, and they both drank.
A challenge for Alexander? Nay. More like he’s gonnae be more of a challenge to me an’ me heart than I care to consider.
Chapter 14
Ignis Aurum Probat
Fire Tests Gold
Alexander dreamed of the castle. He was in the kitchens, he thought, and the cook was making something delightful. Roast chicken, maybe, or stuffed lamb? He couldn’t tell. He took a step closer, trying to distinguish by smell.
The nearer he got to the kitchen, though, the more he began to notice that something was wrong. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew he had to hurry and get to the kitchen as quickly as possible.
He was practically running by the time he realized. Whatever the cook was making—it was burning! There was no smell of delicious roasting meat or potatoes, just the acrid curling of smoke that signified he had to get out now!
I cannae leave them in the kitchen! I have to get to them!
He burst through the door and was met by roaring flames and a cacophony of screams so loud that he fell to his knees, clutching at his eardrums. As the fire reached him and licked at his sides, welcoming him into its deadly embrace, he knew that it was over, all of it.
I’m gonnae die.
He coughed, covering his face, trying to crawl through the fire and the smoke to reach the survivors, but he was overcome by the flames, and the last thing he knew before he dropped unconscious was that he had failed.
Unconsciousness in the dream meant he awoke with a start in real life, his heart pounding, his breath quick and panicky. It had been such a realistic dream! He’d been able to really hear the screams, feel the flames, taste and smell the smoke in the air—
Wait a minute.
He could still smell the smoke. He could still smell the smoke!
Alexander jumped out of bed, grabbing his trews and pulling them on in a hurry. He rushed out of the door, entirely forgetting everything else of his that had accumulated in the room.
As he thundered downstairs, the smoke got quicker. He could see it, too, first some tendrils and then thick smoke pouring from somewhere ahead of him. The house was on fire!
On the landing, he ran into Nathair, who was wild-eyed and staring around as though he could slice the smoke with his sword. “What’s happening?” Alexander asked urgently.
“I dinnae ken,” Nathair replied. “I smelled the smoke an’ ran out, but I have nae seen anyone else.”
Cicilia. The twins!
“Ye go get Jeanie’s parents an’ Katie out o’ here,” Alexander commanded, pointing down the single remaining stairs that led to the kitchens and the servants’ rooms. “I’m gonnae get the family.”
Nathair nodded, and without another word, the two of them parted, one rushing down, the other up, as fast as their legs could carry them.
Cicilia only woke up when the smoke was already curling into her bedroom, interrupting one of the most peaceful nights of sleep she’d had in a while. Before she’d opened her eyes, she’d curled her nose against the smell and turned on her side. In her half-asleep state, she didn’t recognize the danger until a loud crash from below startled her awake.
Wha—fire. Fire! Annys, Jamie! Alexander!
She bolted out of bed, coughing hard against the acrid smoke as it billowed through her doorway, and rushed out of the room without stopping to think. The twins had adjoining rooms on the other end of the hallway. To Cicilia’s horror, there were already flames licking at the stairs between them.
“Jamie! Annys!” she cried, then had to stop, her hands on her knees, to collect her breath. The whole house was ablaze, the smoke so thick she couldn’t see anything but black and orange and red.
Stay close to the ground, Cil.
That had been Mammy’s advice when the pigsty went alight when Cicilia was trapped inside so many years ago. Did it apply here? Would it keep her safe? Alive?
She dropped hard to the ground, crawling as quickly as she could on her elbows and knees, sucking in as much fresh, untainted air as she could. The heat built and built to oppressive levels, and she thought she might pass out.
But she couldn’t stop, not yet. Not when the twins were trapped in their bedrooms!
She reached Annys’s door and pushed it open. All she knew next was a loud creak, and then a blast of heat and air so powerful it sent her reeling backward. When she managed to focus her dazed eyes once more, it was only in time to see the fire raging through the door in Annys’s room.
It beat me here.
“Annys! Annys!” Cicilia screamed, trying desperately to get through the door, ignoring the blisters painfully forming on her hands. “Ye cannae die, ye hear me? I’m comin’. I’m—”
“Cicilia!” a firm voice called from a little down the hall, and she turned her smoke-filled gaze to see Alexander framed in the doorway of Jamie’s bedroom. He had one twin in each arm, and his dark hair was covered in ash. He was pale and shaking and looked like he might pass out at any moment.
I’ve never seen anythin’ so beautiful in me life.
She crawled toward him, dragging herself to her feet when she was near. “Are they all right?” she yelled over the roaring fire.
“Terrified, but fine,” Alexander assured her. He passed Annys to her to carry on her back so he could get a firmer hold on Jamie. “Stairs.”
Cicilia nodded, and they turned…just in time to see the banister of the stairs snap under the heat and collapse, blocking their only way out.
“Window!” Cicilia coughed.
Alexander took her hand with the one not holding Jamie protectively close and pulled her into the boy’s room. Out the window, Cicilia could see the pigpen for the childrens’ as-of-yet unnamed new pet. There was a pile of hay there, but they were two floors up.
“It will nae break our fall!” she told him, terrified. She didn’t mind a few broken bones, but the children!
Alexander grimaced. “The fire’s worse,” he said. He carefully placed the curled up Jamie on the floor at Cicilia’s feet. Before she could say anything else, he had vaulted himself over the windowsill.
She ran to gaze over and saw him land. It was a good landing, but not a gentle one, even though he landed perfectly in the hay. She saw the odd angle to his shoulder and the way his leg stuttered as he stood. “Alexander!” she called.
“Pass them down! I’ll catch them!” Alexander yelled back.
Ye’re mad!
There was nobody, nobody in the world that she could fully trust her siblings with, and now he expected her to toss them out of a burning building and trust him to catch them?
And yet she could feel the heat at both the adjoining door and the one where they’d entered. They were cornered by the flames, and she did not have time.
Fine. I’ll trust ye, Alexander.
Annys was terrified as Cicilia carried her to the window, but the good thing was that she was too scared to even struggle. Cicilia swallowed, offering prayers to whatever god or gods would listen, and let her go.
The girl screamed on the way down, and Cicilia closed her eyes, panic eating at her heart. Had she just killed her own sister?
Annys!
“I have her, Cicilia!” Alexander’s voice called up, and Cicilia’s lungs started to let in air again. She peeked her head over the sill to see Alexander sitting an uninjured Annys on the ground. “Jamie now!”
“Aye!” Cicilia said.
She turned to pick him up, but Jamie was sobbing. “I dinnae want to, Cil. I dinnae want to!”
Desperately, Cicilia pleaded with him. “Pl
ease, Jamie. We dinnae have a choice.”
“But what if I get hurt? What if Alexander doesn’ae catch me? I could die!” Jamie protested.
It hurt Cicilia’s heart to hear him talking like this. He was too young to be dwelling on death. But they were running out of time, and smoke was starting to pour through the cracks in the door. She knelt down to his level. “Listen to me, Jamie. Do ye trust me?” she asked.
“Aye,” Jamie said. “But—”
“Be a brave boy, like Daddy, all right?” Cicilia pleaded. “For me?”
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